Crimson Women: Blood Hunger Movie
Crimson Women Crimson Women the proposed film adaptation of the novel Blood Hunger began development in 2010. After the success of the prelude film (to Blood Hunger) Terminus , A. M. Esmonde and several writers began to develop Crimson Women. Crimson Women (the working title apparently seemed more marketable and less clichéd than novel's title) draft script, synopsis and treatment was made briefly available on the authors site for fan feedback in 2011. It follows the book storyline quite closely however the major differences include, Ivan appears more frequent to give guidance to Lucia, there is more ambiguity if Ivan is real, similar to Griffin Dunne's character Jack Goodman in John Landis' American Werewolf in London. The synopsis was adapted from the novel “Blood Hunger” and treatment by Esmonde with the synopsis written by Irish writer Norina Mackey . It was intended that author Richard J. Parker would have some input with Mackey and Esmonde's working together on Esmonde's future draft scripts. Also the location's in Esmonde's draft script are different with the Romanian setting notably altered from the treatment and novel. In addition, main and sub-characters are expanded. The project was left in 'development hell' due to funding difficulties. Crimson Women Treatment A. M. Esmonde's treatment below has been broken into acts. The content is is as it appeared on his site. Act 1 15th CENTURY Abraham Wilton lives in Westminster, London. 1450AD; he encounters a Serbian man named Lazar in search of his daughter, Anushka. Lazar tells Abraham about the Vampire. Wilton an adventurer is ahead of his time, an aid and enlightener to the King and the socialites of the era. Near his home a local family appear to be dying of the plague however, they are in fact becoming victim of a hired carpenter, who is a vampire. Wilton armed with Lazars knowledge; stops the carpenter from killing the last member of the family. Wilton tortures th e carpenter and takes it upon himself to journey into Wales with the volition of killing one of the head vampires Stellan Dracul, his brothers and their brides. In 1477AD Wilton, with the help of some Welsh Gentry he hunts down and kills Mircea Dracul and later on Radu Dracul. Finding the Dracul’s castle Wilton sets about killing Vlad Dracul. He makes a search of the catacombs and crypt and finds a vampire, Ivan, who is willing to help him in his quest. Wilton then tracks down Stellan Dracul and chases him up onto a mountaintop where he plunges his stake into him and he falls to his death. The Brides of the Dracul escape to Europe then travel onto the ‘undiscovered’ countries. As Wilton continues with licence from the Pope and the King, he uses witch-hunts as an excuse to almost wipe out the entire vampire. PRESENT DAY, WALES Explorer Max Lowe and his team make a discovery, a bog body frozen in ice, dubbed the 'Ice Prince' find, it is significant enough to put him and girlfriend Lucia Ferrara in the media spotlight. At their hotel a book is handed to Lucia, by a skinny drawn looking man, Ivan, which is meant for Max, the book is entitled ‘vampir and vampire a tale of truth by Wilton and Lazar’. PRESENT DAY, LONDON On their first showing of the Ice Prince tour at the Natural History Museum in London, Max Lowe is run over and hospitalised. Adrian Michaels a Detective Sergeant investigating this hit and run. Lucia and her confidante who is an old friend of her father’s, Robert Morgan, decide to continue with the tour as they both feel it would be what Max would want. A Dr Smith has doubts about the bodies’ actual age due to its pristine condition and questions Lucia about the validity of the find. The world’s press are not the only ones interested in the frozen body. Old friends of the ‘Ice Prince’ Iliana and her sister’s, the Brides of the Dracul brother’s; journey from their secluded American mansion to the United Kingdom. Lucia and Robert continue the tour of the ice prince and the body is prepared for departure to be put on display in Wales. Iliana visits Lucia at the Natural History Museum inquiring about the body, Lucia feels a strange dreamlike feeling, which draws her towards the woman (Known as trancing). She invites her to visit her castle when Lucia comes to Wales. Two bodies are found in the Thames both have been mutilated. One is the Dr Smith who doubted the ice princes age. Adrian Michaels is asked to cease investigating Max’s hit and run case and begins to investigate the murders. As the body is transported to Wales a hijack of the truck goes wrong on the Severn Bridge and the truck plunges into the water releasing the Ice prince, Stellan, from his cooling chamber. WALES Stellan naked, kills a woman in an alley and is arrested. Lucia and Robert arrive in Wales and hear the news that the body has gone missing. The Dracul sisters Iliana, Monica, Gabriela also arrive in Wales and take up residence in their old castle Du-y-Nos, and mirror of the one they resided in Romania. They are accompanied by Nettie John who the sisters took in as a baby, she was the only surviving member when her family after they were massacred in the US and Charles (Iliana’s right hand man) saved her. THE BODIES MOUNT UP Monica, Iliana and Gabriela ceased their many years of blood abstinence and their aged bodies return to their former youthful glory. Bodies pile up and Adrian Michaels requests to go to Wales to investigate as he thinks these cases are linked with the murders in London. Adrian visits the various murder sites and the morgue. The bodies’ wounds have startling similarities but vary in viciousness. AT THE POLICE STATION Lucia is taken to the police station for questioning, by Adrian Michaels, as she was the last person to speak to or see Dr Smith alive. She tells him of the strange woman’s visit at the museum. Adrian shows her the security tape of the night in question when she last saw Dr Smith and there is no woman (Iliana). Adrian is handed the forensic results; however, they are not conclusive, as the DNA has no significant trait strands, it is an anomaly. Stellan is also being interrogated in the same station. He has been in confinement many times before. His last imprisonment was in Vermandois, France with Joan of Arc. Imprisoned in Château de Beaurevoir where they had endured regular, swift beatings and torture. He insists that he must see Lucia Ferrara as he feels her presence, knowing her after the many hours she had spent with him whilst he lay frozen in his case. He owes his life to her, and he thinks she must now belong to him. Iliana steals the identity of a Detective Sergeant and as Stellan’s interrogator suffers a mysterious heart attack, they make an escape from the police station returning to the castle. AT DU-Y-NOS CASTLE On Stellan’s return, he finds it hard to adjust in the new time and is annoyed at the Dracul sisters that have not kept up the vampire traditions; he accuses them of becoming soft and decadent. Iliana bites Nettie John and she goes through the painful transformation into a vampire, which is the first new vampire to transform in over 500 years, much to the irritation of Monica and Stellan. Stellan indulges in the delights of the Brides but also new vampire Nettie. Stellan’s thoughts are always on Lucia. Act 2 LUCIA’S CONCERNS Lucia begins to take the book ‘vampir and vampire’ more seriously and finds herself thinking more about Stellan who she briefly encountered at the police station, but doesn’t know he is the Ice Prince, he seemed to call to her and she felt as if she was in a dreamlike state again, similar to the woman at the museum. Robert and Lucia talk about the insurance money for the tour that cannot now go ahead without the body; he puts her at ease that everything is going to be okay. LUCIA STAYS AT DU-Y-NOS Lucia attends a masquerade ball at Du-y-Nos Castle she get very drunk and stays over night, however, waking in the night she witnesses Nettie John making her first killing, Nettie and Lucia fight and she is chased into the tunnels underneath the castle. Loosing consciousness she awakes in bed convinced that the previous night’s events were a dream. LUCIA’S SECRET ADMIRER Lucia receives an invitation from a stranger, asking her to attend an outdoor classical music event. Not knowing that the stranger is Stellan, she curiously feels overwhelmed by the trancing whilst watching the performance as she encounters Stellan briefly he is sat behind her and during the fireworks display Stellan disappears into the night. Act 3 ADRIAN MICHAELS REALISES THE TRUTH Adrian Michaels looks over Stellan’s interrogation tapes and realises that the interrogator’s heart attack was due to fear as Stellan had no reflection. He now believes Lucia that there was a woman in the museum. However before he can advise Lucia of this he is killed in his hotel room, by Iliana, who he still assumes is a DS. AN EVENING TO REMEMBER Lucia now knows that the books history is true and leaves messages for Adrian to meet her at an evening dinner she is attending with Robert at Du-y-Nos. Gabriela tends to Nettie she is concerned that Iliana is annoyed that Stellan took her. Monica then pressures Nettie, she says that Iliana will be returning to the US and she needs to watch her step, as she does not approve of her. Nettie John is found dead; out in the grounds below a broken window. Iliana suspects Stellan, he states, “The girl was disturbed, maybe she jumped because she was mad, or because being un-dead is different to being alive, the noises, the senses, the ghostly whispers. No real reflection, just a pale outline, or maybe, just maybe, it was because she found out you killed her family?” Iliana stutters, “It was Monica...” “Really Iliana, it doesn’t matter why she did it. There are a million reasons why. Besides, there should only be Lucia and I’ll try to forget that you never had my permission to turn her.” Iliana realises she no longer needs Stellan; she is over 500 years wiser and stronger than ever before. The medieval era of being a concubine and accessory had ended. She has realised that she gained inner strength and was never again going to be Stellan’s lapdog. Lucia and Robert arrive at the castle. They sit down to dinner with Monica and Gabriela. Overseen by Charles. Iliana joins them and it becomes apparent that Robert has met these people before. Lucia releases that something is very wrong and is unsuccessful in contacting Adrian. Lucia presses Morgan for answers. He explains... “It’s the money Lucia. It was always about the money, I had no choice, and with the American tour cancelled, we have lost so much. How the hell do you think we got the money to get him from Romania? We were on the verge of bankruptcy! And Max’s life style didn’t help. She bailed us out.” Act 4 THE BATTLE ENSUES Adrian’s head is served as the main meal and Lucia tries to escape, as the two sisters kill Morgan. She cannot leave and runs up the stairs Stellan stands in his full former glory before Lucia, haunting, oozing an unnatural aura that stops her dead in her tracks. She is asked to join them. Lucia fends off Stellan and Iliana off with her father’s cross around her neck, she leaps onto a chandelier, and hangs there precariously. Charles begins to lower the chandelier. “We should let her fall,” says Iliana. This comment enrages Stellan and he smacks Iliana, Charles tries to defend her, only for Stellan to snap his neck. Stellan has no place for Iliana and only wants Lucia. Iliana attacks Stellan and her sister’s join the onslaught and he is torn apart. Lucia has escaped into the tunnels with Iliana in hot pursuit Lucia enters the crypt and sees Wilton’s stone tomb that had been removed from London Lucia hides in a plain wooden coffin that actually contains Wilton’s body. The side is punctured by an axe; Iliana climbs on the top of the lid. Lucia pushes out hard sending Iliana to the stone floor. She stands up in as Iliana tries to remove the axe from one-half of the broken lid. Lucia grips Wilton’s wooden stake Iliana swats at Lucia with an iron candleholder sending her to the floor. As the two women fight, Lucia is forced onto her back into the coffin breaking the side panels. Wilton’s stake is on the broken coffin lid that rests on the over-turned candleholder. Lucia slams her foot onto the lid sending the stake into the air; catching it, she drives the stake into Iliana. Lucia then flips her into the stone coffin. Lucia heads towards the imbedded axe in the coffin. Picking up the axe she heads toward Iliana. A shortage leaves the two women in darkness. Act 5 MORNING BREAKS In a pile of fallen books at the foot of the tunnels entrance where Lucia had fled, laid open a dusty version of ‘The Vampir & Vampire, Tale of Truth’, its old pages flicked open. Stellan’s exposed body lay in an open doorway waiting to greet the morning sun... LAS VEGAS Five months later Max Lowe chokes a woman by the neck in a hotel room on the Las Vegas strip. The woman is a crazed vampire, who smirks at him with bloodstained teeth. “Where is Lucia Ferrara?” he questions fiercely, Ivan, Wiltons aide Vampire stands next to him. They are on the hunt. Category:Crimson Women Category:Blood Hunger Category:development hell Category:film Category:movie Category:adaptation Category:A. M. Esmonde Category:Blood Hunger Treatment Category:TV pilot Category:horror Category:spec script Category:vampire Category:models Category:photoshoot Category:Terminus Category:screenplay